Lev Manovich Details Soft Cinema II, Shares Clip

Media theorist Lev Manovich has shared a new example from Soft Cinema II, a software engine that assembles films in real time from media databases using written rules and algorithms. In an Oct. 6 Instagram post, Manovich said the engine now accepts executable web code, HTML and JavaScript, as a native element of a film, alongside video, stills and audio. Watch the clip below.

The clip shows generative abstract animations that Manovich says were coded with the AI assistant Claude, playing inside a Soft Cinema II film. The page carries 20 live controls that can be changed during playback. According to Manovich, the engine can produce a single unique film or run endlessly without repeating a sequence. "Although it can include AI-generated media, the engine uses explicit algorithms rather than black-box AI models," the caption reads.

Soft Cinema II is not yet public. In a reply under the post, Manovich wrote that the software currently has 113 parameters and will be released "eventually with documentation," once it is simplified.

The original Soft Cinema was a collaboration between Manovich and artist and designer Andreas Kratky, released by MIT Press in 2005 as Soft Cinema: Navigating the Database, a DVD of three films with a 40-page booklet. Its software edited movies in real time by choosing elements from a database under rules set by the authors. Manovich is also the author of The Language of New Media (MIT Press, 2001).

For more reading, see A sculptural camera turns a game engine into cinema and Manovich's Soft Cinema project page.